Chapter 13 Zane
ZANE
“She stole my car,” I curse under my breath. “I wouldn’t have just let her leave if I knew she was going to live out her Grand Theft Auto fantasies.”
I jerk the wheel to the side, vaulting our car around the corner with reckless precision. My eyes water as a vibrant blue-white screen is thrust into my vision, stark against the shadowed city outside the windshield. A red dot pulses on the screen in its glow.
“It stopped moving about a minute ago. Think she ditched it?” my companion asks. His timbre is deep and rich and though it is scratchier now with age hearing it still fills me with the same sense calming solidity that it gave me as a child.
It’s okay. Checkmate stole my car and left it on the side of the goddamn road, but it’s okay.
I shake my head and floor the accelerator, the borrowed Camry whining in protest.
“Take it easy. My car is my baby, and we won’t get there any quicker if we get caught up in a traffic stop.”
True. Jail would definitely make murdering my lovely nemesis a bit harder.
I doubt I’d listen if it were anyone other than Edgar Pancost sitting beside me, his tall frame rigid with stress his face refused to show.
Decades in a courtroom and a love of poker have schooled his expression into one of continual control.
His reputation as the hard-ass attorney with the smile of pure sunshine is legendary in New Malcolm.
“This doesn’t feel right,” he says, gesturing vaguely at his side before adding, “There’s something… a tickle. Unease.”
I nod. I’m doing my best to keep my eyes on the glowing dot and the road, but for just a second, I allow myself to be distracted. Because I know what he’s feeling; I’ve been feeling it too, all night. Since Kaye left the house, actually.
“Promise me you’ll take the car back to the manor and let me deal with Kaye alone.”
“I’m not some feeble old man.”
I laugh. “Anyone who mistakes you for feeble lacks a sense of self-preservation.”
No, Edgar can take care of himself. He’s the best person I know. He’d do anything to help someone, even a stranger. Especially a stranger. He hasn’t met Kaye yet and he’s out here with me, risking it all to help her.
That’s precisely why I can’t stand the idea of him doing this.
I look at his strong face, lined with years of worry—a burden I placed on his shoulders—where I should see the easy happiness and warmth rivaling the magnitude of the sun’s rays. I feel the phantom of his solid grip on my shoulder the day we lowered my parents into the earth.
And his assurance: We’ll get through this.
Danger trails Kaye like Hansel and Gretel following breadcrumbs. It was bad enough when it was just me. Now Checkmate is on the loose again, with the knowledge to burn the last scraps of my family to the ground.
I need a partner to come for C. He’ll have men, money, influence at his disposal.
Someone who doesn’t have to get close to use their powers—someone explosive.
There are a number of people who fit that bill.
People who won’t make such a fuss, who will follow any orders given with a wad of cash. So why am I hell bent on it being her?
Because she can’t be bought.
Because C wants her, and I’d rather we kill each other than let him have anything ever again.
Because if I can convince her, I can convince anyone.
And—while true—none of those are the real reason.
“Stop here.”
I dart a glance at the screen. The dot’s pulse emanates from within a tangle of back alley bars and clubs. I’ll have to find a less direct route if I want to maintain the element of surprise.
“Please do this for me.” I meet the older man’s gaze and try my best to express the swirl of emotions doomed to lay dormant inside. “George and Angela will kill me if something happens to you. If not for my safety, then for my sanity.”
Apprehension shivers down my shoulders as I watch the taillights disappear around a corner and out of sight.
A network of rails and rust connect the rooftops and fire escapes of this part of New Malcolm.
A labyrinth of mom-and-pop style shops with apartments overtop, mostly empty now except for the odd squatter.
Specialty grocery stores. Pharmacies. Independent bookstores.
All gone in favor of the oldest shadow of all. Liquor. Gambling. Heroin.
Rose.
Raucous laughter from men and women too busy hiding from life to truly live it rings out in the night. And over that? The flap of pigeon wings. Squealing tires and booming base. And the sounds of a brawl carried on the wind.
One night in New Malcolm and she’s back to brawling in alleys. One night.
It doesn’t take long to track the source of the commotion. The streets are messy and littered with detritus. You never know who’s waiting to spring from a shadowed nook or corner, but the roofs are clear, if a little unstable.
I spy her group over the edge of a crumbling brick wall that smells faintly of piss. Kaye.
Checkmate.
She is resplendent, completely in her element.
Hair wild and free as it never could be in her costume.
It whips and tangles around her face as she lures her opponents into taking the wrong steps.
Even without using her powers, Kaye is a force to be reckoned with.
She’s beautiful. I turn away from the brawl, but nothing can remove the shape of her incinerated into my mind.
Logic says that this should be something I can admit, notice, and let go of as easily as stray thoughts in meditation.
A rival is a rival. Even with the lure of alliance on the table, we are who we are.
If she agrees to back me now, the future offers no guarantees.
We still disagree on what’s best for New Malcolm.
Sometimes I wish this city would burn to the ground. Start with that cesspool—the Warehouse District—and let the blaze raze through every corrupt edifice. No more nooks or corners to crawl into and hide.
Maybe then I’d be free.
Maybe I could even learn to live again.
Maybe I’d strike the match myself.
A small, startled choke passes her lips. It pierces my thoughts, an arrow straight through my eardrums and into my core, and my head can’t whip back to her quickly enough.
She kneels on the ground, long strands of hair hiding her face from view. That bastard from the CCP auction smirks from some distance away with his back leaning on the brick, inspecting the talons he calls nails on his right hand.
Somehow, he made it past her line. The way he’s acting… it’s like he’s already won.
No.
That stupid, plant skulking motherfu—
I don’t remember making the decision to drop over the wall and join the fight, but I suddenly find myself standing in front of Stanley, my vision a tunnel of red. I'll be all too happy to see that shit-eating grin wiped off his face.
A hand grips my shoulder from behind, jerking my torso around. That’s fine. I follow the trajectory, letting it work in my favor while I seek the contact that will allow my influence to seep inside.
That’s the difference between me and some of these idiots running around on the street with spandex sticking up their asscracks tighter than a second skin.
I don’t need to fight to win. I will if I have to, a theory Checkmate was always good at putting to the test, but it’s not essential.
Sure, there’s less glory, but I would rather have victory than glory any day.
When it’s all over, a pile of bodies lies at my feet, alive, but deeply wounded.
“I was hoping you’d show up.” His voice is slick with menace. I’m a little impressed that his casual demeanor has remained in the light of the fate of his companions.
I’m going to enjoy this.
“Kaye?” I sink to one knee in front of her, and it’s like I’m not even there. Her eyes stay fixed on a point only she can see, pupils blown wide. Her shoulders shake with uneven, staccato huffs. “What did you do to her?”
“I stopped the legendary Checkmate for good. You’re wel—” His voice cuts off as my hand wraps around his throat, his head thunking against the brick.
Your hands are numb, Stanley. They are cold and clammy and useless.
Power pulsates in my palm and it passes into his skin. It carries the sound of my voice in its stream, a compulsion none can deny.
You don’t feel a thing. Are those even your fingers anymore, Stanley? Fingers aren’t real if they don’t feel.
Make them feel again, Stanley.
Then it’s not just words that flow. An idea rides that tide, its seed planting into Stanley’s mind until—
CRUNCH.
Stanley lifts up the mangled mess at the tip of each palm and vaults it back into the brick once more for good measure.
The fingers don’t break; he’s lucky. The nail beds, torn and rubbed with gore, weep the yellow, viscous remnants of whatever poison he injected into Kaye.
I have no doubt the phalanges at his tips are shattered.
He drops to the ground, the ruin of his hands a pulpy crimson mess clutched to his chest as his howls break the night. I barely register the pounding of his feet as he races a few feet blindly down the alley and then collapses as his own poison spreads through his veins.
“Kaye, can you hear me?” I sink beside her. Her clothes are stretched in spots, torn in others, but she looks whole except for that path of scarlet tracks decorating her right cheek. Her pulse beats an erratic, stilted rhythm under my fingers.
“What happened to Stan?”
A boy stands a few feet back from us, watching.
His hair is combed back under the hood of his jacket, a small poof of it rising out before flattening under the weight of the fabric.
His features aren’t what I would call handsome.
They have a symmetry to them that’s almost too perfect and something in his posture makes me think of the prep school jocks I ignored as a kid.
Kaye shudders. Her eyes focus on mine, her wild, dark intensity communicating so much in that moment, before narrowing.
She’s fighting to stay in control. My lovely, brilliant adversary.